Okay, this whole “Happy Holidays” jihad is confusing me. As far as I can remember, people have been saying “HH” for many, many years now. Every time I’ve heard it, regardless of who’s speaking it, I’ve always interpreted it as an act of kindness that’s meant to imply “I know we may have different beliefs, but I hope your celebration is a happy one.” Of course, with New Years in the mix, it’s more than a pleasant inter-faith greeting. “Happy Holidays” is a nice, sincere expression of the whole season.
For a few humbugs out there, however, “Happy Holidays” has been stripped of its goodness and turned into a hideous attack on Christmas. Did you think you were being kind and inclusionary in your seasons greeting? Well, you were wrong! Little did you know that you were actually saying “Up yours, baby Jesus”. Okay, I’m exaggerating here, but not by much.
To hear some pundits weigh in, you’d think Christianity was under attack by liberal P.C. zealotry. As someone who’s been accused of being too politically correct, let me assure you that I don’t think saying “Merry Christmas” is an insult, I think public schools should be allowed to have Christmas trees, and I have very little problem with the fact that Christmas is the only religious holiday that’s recognized by the government.1 This is coming from someone who thinks a story about a virgin giving birth to god’s son in a barn is as ludicrous as a reindeer with a glowing nose or an elf who wants to be a dentist.
While many religious folks decry it, I see Christmas as a holiday whose spiritual meaning has been slowly eroding for a few generations now. While I detest overcommercialization, I think the secularization of the holiday is a good thing overall. The “reason for the season” arguments aside, the warmth that people get from the holiday season has much less to do with nativity scenes2 than with our society’s annual rites of being civil towards one another.
So, that’s why this atheist celebrates Christmas, but I can understand why many would choose not to do so. Obviously there are people who aren’t as comfortable with the holiday due to their cultural or religious traditions. Yet for those who are hell-bent on stripping the words “Happy Holidays” from our shared lexicon, the idea that any other major holiday would dare to impede on X-mas’ turf is an insult3. As far as the self-appointed defenders of Christmas are concerned, December belongs to Jesus. Period.
I’m not going defend the hypothetical language police who insist on making the words “Merry Christmas” a crime. That’s clearly a case of political correctness run amok. When you’ve got people interpreting every utterance of a harmless phrase as an attack on Christianity itself, extremism on the opposite end of the aisle is to blame. Just as liberals are often guilty of overreaching in our attempts to curb government sponsorship of religion, religious conservatives need to keep their persecution complex in check and realize that a few vague words of kindness don’t amount to an attempt to kill Christmas.
1: Within reason, of course. As far as I’m concerned, symbols like Santa Claus and Christmas trees have a pretty solid foot in the secular world at this point. Little statues that celebrate a baby being born in a barn are another story… (Check out this Slate article for more on the thin line between religious and secular Christmas symbols.)
2: Besides, as a non-believer, I find the stories about Jesus’s birth to be as unpersuasive as Mel Gibson’s pornographic celebration of his death. Jesus said and did plenty of great things; when are we gonna get a holiday devoted to that?
3: For example, take what Pat Robertson had to say about Kwanzaa :
Reverend Pat Robertson called Kwanzaa “an absolute fraud” during the news segment of Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club December 6. After lamenting that “left wing educators, left-wing judges are stripping every vestige of our Christian heritage,” Robertson, host and Christian Coalition of America founder, said: “Kwanzaa is an absolute fraud. You know, there was no festival in Africa called ‘Kwanzaa.’ I mean, it’s made up by a bunch of hippie-types on the West Coast. I mean, it’s not something that goes back to Africa. No way.”
Robertson sure is quick to cast stones, but there aren’t any holidays (religious or otherwise) that can reject charge of being “made up”. Since it’s pretty much a given that Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th and that the date was likely chosen by early Christians as a way to compete with pagan holidays such as Yule and Saturnalia, lemme just say “it’s not something that goes back to Bethlehem. No way.”
